Reviews WesternAnimation / Spider Man The Animated Series

A solid Spider-Man show in concept, but so-so in execution

This series is a weird one for me. With most other SM adaptions, I don’t have much trouble deciding whether I think they are good or not, but here, it’s a lot more complicated. After thinking things over, I can say that this show definitely gets Spider-Man’s character and his general themes, it has reverence for the source material and it even updated some of the campier elements from the OG comics, the voice acting is mostly solid, and at least on a conceptual level, most of the stories are compelling and when they work (like the Venom symbiote three-parter and Green Goblin’s debut) they really work. But on the other hand, we can’t deny that this show is filled to the brim with Narm and some subpar writing that doesn't fully realize its grand ideas.

It’s pretty clear that the main issue that held this series back from being as good as something like Batman: The Animated Series was the excessive Executive Meddling and their gratuitous Animation Age Ghetto attitude, along with budget restraints, leading to a lot of subpar and sometimes choppy animation after the first season, along with oftentimes borderline ADD pacing. And the animation style also left something to be desired, especially the World of Muscle Men issue, which is most problematic with Peter himself, who is meant to be a The Everyman but comes off more as a Hunk. And need we forget, all the flashbacks/stock footage that plagued the series more and more as it went along? And I wasn't too fond of several strange creative liberties, like making Vulture a youth vampire or making Electo Red Skull's son.

Some supporting characters work very well. I really like this iteration of Jameson, who does a good job being a layered and nuanced Jerk with a Heart of Gold, helped a lot by his tragic backstory, which gave his hatred for SM a new dimension. Felicia Hardy is also very strong in this. There were many liberties taken with her but in the end, it worked in making her interesting and less of a Catwoman Expy. Other characters didn’t fare too well. Aunt May suffers from being too faithful to her original scatterbrained and smothering depiction, while MJ was reduced to a Satellite Love Interest Damsel in Distress and I really did not buy her romance with Peter, which felt melodramatic and shallow, if not unhealthy.

Kingpin mostly works. He’s a very effective and menacing villain but I will not deny that he is far too prominent in the series, at the expense of Spidey’s costumed rogues. But when they are given focus, I think most of the supervillains work very well and manage to be fun, tragic, and/or intriguing, but unfortunately, many of them suffer Villain Decay or are Out of Focus later on.

Overall, this show certainly has its strengths, but in the end, it's essentially a toned-down, imperfect prototype for the awesomeness that was The Spectacular Spider-Man. Though if Green Goblin was in it, season one would have been a solid (if somewhat dated) SM series.